[interestednovice]

It'll be interesting to see if the opening "with the latest headlines for viewers in the UK and around the world" is dropped on 6 March as well. It's not used on the overnight simulcasts, presumably because UK viewing figures are miniscule anyway!

Probably, it always struck me as unnecessarily highlighting the simulcast and an annoying delay to actually getting to the headlines. I much prefer the classic: “This is BBC News, I’m whoever, the headlines [at TIME]”. You could still tell when it was a simulcast as references to time were dropped, of course.

They did an even longer and more unwieldy intro for a while during the original Covid lockdowns, to the effect of “This is BBC News, with the latest coronavirus developments here in the U.K. and around the world. I’m whoever.”

This is even more ridiculous when they then go on to say, again, “Welcome if you you are watching in the U.K., or around the world” immediately after the headline sequence!

However, a comment on studios: the news that A is going to actively be used is very disappointing, frankly. It simply looks terrible. I was hoping that a revamp of E, including work in the newsroom and the former weather balcony / Outside Source area would allow for a solid “main studio” and secondary presentation space; A’s gallery then being used effectively for playout of the U.K. stream only and the studio not appearing on screen. In my most-optimistic assumptions, I was thinking this would then free-up A for another studio upgrade so the tech could be improved for future use. D could be a good spare studio, seeing as it has already been upgraded, and C could be tweaked in a similar way. It sounds like none of that will now happen.

Apologies for conflating things earlier by forgetting to mention the newsroom “studio area” in my speculation - I wasn’t clear, but I was thinking of how things might be used before that area was ready. I’m assuming at least some upgrades would be required, so it more closely mimics a “real studio”. It wouldn’t be any good, in my view, for it to simply be a presenter putting their laptop on a small pedestal-style table for potentially hours at a time. It worked out for the Victoria Derbyshire news summary, but that was because it was only a short update.

I’m also somewhat surprised, but pleased, to see that they are going to broadcast World Business Report in the UK. They’ve often seemed reluctant to do that in the past, for some reason, despite UK-business news being cut back. This is a good move.